OBAMA'S INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST CONNECTIONS

[bparker]

http://www.newswithviews.com/Kincaid/cliff208.htm

By Cliff Kincaid

February 18, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

Campaign workers for Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama are under fire for displaying a flag featuring communist hero Che Guevara. But Obama has his own controversial socialist connections. He is, in fact, an associate of a Chicago-based Marxist group with access to millions of labor union dollars and connections to expert political consultants, including a convicted swindler.
Obama?s socialist backing goes back at least to 1996, when he received the endorsement of the Chicago branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for an Illinois state senate seat. Later, the Chicago DSA newsletter reported that Obama, as a state senator, showed up to eulogize Saul Mendelson, one of the ?champions? of ?Chicago?s democratic left? and a long-time socialist activist. Obama?s stint as a ?community organizer? in Chicago has gotten some attention, but his relationship with the DSA socialists, who groomed and backed him, has been generally ignored.
Blogger Steve Bartin, who has been following Obama?s career and involvement with the Chicago socialists, has uncovered a fascinating video showing Obama campaigning for openly socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Interestingly, Sanders, who won his seat in 2006, called Obama ?one of the great leaders of the United States Senate,? even though Obama had only been in the body for about two years. In 2007, the National Journal said that Obama had established himself as ?the most liberal Senator.? More liberal than Sanders? That is quite a feat. Does this make Obama a socialist, too?
DSA describes itself as the largest socialist organization in the United States and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. The Socialist International (SI) has what is called ?consultative status? with the United Nations. In other words, it works hand-in-glove with the world body.
The international connection is important and significant because an Obama bill, ?The Global Poverty Act,? has just been rushed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with the assistance of Democratic Senator Joe Biden, the chairman, and Republican Senator Richard Lugar. The legislation (S.2433) commits the U.S. to spending hundreds of billions of dollars more in foreign aid on the rest of the world, in order to comply with the ?Millennium Goals? established by the United Nations. Conservative members of the committee were largely caught off-guard by the move to pass the Obama bill but are putting a ?hold? on it, in order to try to prevent the legislation, which also quickly passed the House, from being quickly brought up for a full Senate vote. But observers think that Senate Democrats may try to pass it quickly anyway, in order to give Obama a precious legislative ?victory? that he could run on.
Another group associated with the SI is the Party of European Socialists (PES), which heard from Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, back in 2006. Dean?s speech is posted on the official Democratic Party website, although the European socialist parties are referred to as ?progressive.? Democrats, Dean said, want to be ?good citizens of the world community.? He spoke at a session on ?Global Challenges for Progressive Politics.?
Following up, in April 2007, PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen reported that European socialists held a meeting ?in the Democrats HQ in Washington,? met with officials of the party and Democratic members of Congress, and agreed that ?PES activist groups? in various U.S. cities would start working together. The photos of the trip show Rasmussen meeting with such figures as Senator Ben Cardin, Senator Bernie Sanders, officials of the Brookings Institution, Howard Dean, and AFL-CIO President John W. Sweeney, a member of the DSA. The Brookings Institution is headed by former Clinton State Department official Strobe Talbott, a proponent of world government who was recently identified in the book Comrade J as having been a pawn of the Russian intelligence service.


The socialist connections of Obama and the Democratic Party have certainly not been featured in the Washington Post columns of Harold Meyerson, who happens not only to be a member but a vice-chair of the DSA. Meyerson, the subject of our 2005 column, ?A Socialist at the Washington Post,? has praised convicted inside-trader George Soros for manipulating campaign finance laws to benefit the far-left elements of the Democratic Party. Obama?s success in the Democratic presidential primaries and caucuses is further evidence of Soros?s success. Indeed, Soros has financially contributed to the Obama campaign.
It is not surprising that the Chicago Democrat, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, has endorsed Obama. Schakowsky, who endorsed Howard Dean for president in 2004, was honored in 2000 at a dinner sponsored by the Chicago chapter of the DSA. Her husband, Robert Creamer, emerged from federal prison in November 2006 after serving five months for financial crimes. He pleaded guilty to ripping off financial institutions while running a non-profit group. Before he was convicted but under indictment, Creamer was hired by the Soros-funded Open Society Policy Center to sabotage John Bolton?s nomination as Ambassador to the U.N.
After his release from prison, Creamer released a book, Listen to Your Mother: Stand up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, described by one blogger as the book that was ?penned in the pen.? A blurb for the book declares, ?Some people think that in order to win, Democrats need to move to the political center by adopting conservative values and splitting the difference between progressive and conservative positions. History shows they are wrong. To win the next election and to win in the long term, we need to redefine the political center.?

[frenzy1]

I TRULY HATE SOCIALISTS !! We got too many of them over here ! Potsmokin' left wing commies !!!
Here's some pics of belgian socialists, aren't they cute ???






of course, we got some good lookin' politicians too, of course from my political party :

[wpage]

Should be interesting to see what comes of the Hillary & Barack dog and pony show...

[LR wolf]

wow Frenzy, i always thought Europeans were somewhat more civilized, hate of a person who just wants to help others seems a little self serving to me

[RubHer Yellow Ducky]

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February 19, 2008

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Realism' in Syria

New York Sun Editorial
February 15, 2008

What in the world are advisers to both Senators Obama and Clinton doing in Syria in the middle of a presidential campaign ? and why are the two campaigns so unforthcoming about the details of the visits? The same week that a terrorist mastermind harbored by the Baathist regime in Damascus was assassinated by a car bomb, both one of Mr. Obama's foreign policy counselors, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a long-time critic of Israel, and one of Mrs. Clinton's national finance chairs, Hassan Nemazee, were meeting with President Assad.
Mr. Brzezinski himself issued a statement to the Baathist controlled press in Damascus, where he was quoted by the official Sana News Agency as saying that the "talks dealt with recent regional developments, affirming that both sides have a common desire to achieve stability in the region, which would benefit both its people and the United States." There was no indication in respect of whether Mr. Brzezinski queried the Syrian regime, officially listed by our own State Department as a terrorist-sponsoring state, about the assassination of Hezbollah's Imadh Mugniyah, who was slain by a car-bomb as, according to the Lebanese Broadcasting Channel, he was leaving a ceremony at an Iranian school in Damascus.
When our Eli Lake, telephoned the Obama campaign to see what it had to say about its adviser's doings in Syria, a spokesman said it was the first they had heard about it. Mr. Nemazee's office would not say anything about the trip, nor would Mrs. Clinton's campaign. When Mr. Lake rang the Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus, he was informed that Mr. Nemazee had left with the delegation yesterday.
Where is the sense of reality about who President Assad is and what his regime is all about? To suggest, as the Syrians report Mr. Brzezinski said, that they share some kind of common interest in respect of "stability" is disingenuous. Mugniyah, whom the Syrians had been harboring, has been among the FBI's most-wanted terrorists since 1983, when he authorized the attack on the American Marine barracks in Beirut. Mr. Assad runs a police state. Dictatorships can only thrive if the population is in constant terror and convinced the state itself is all knowing.
This has lead some to speculate that the Syrian regime itself might have been complicit in the killing of Mugniyah. We wouldn't gainsay the possibility entirely. Terrorists like drug dealers and mafiosos fight over turf all the time. What we would gainsay is that a benign construction could be put onto the role of the Assad family's Baathist regime in Syria. If the assassination of Mugniyah is a sign of anything, it is most likely that the Baathist regime is itself losing its grip on power. After all Mugniyah was a valuable asset for Mr. Assad, who relied on his capabilities to continue to threaten the prospect of a stable Lebanon.
* * *
So where's the "realism" on the part of Mr. Brzezinski and other so-called foreign policy "realists," who have accused President Bush of foreign policy malpractice for downgrading relations with Syria after the Syrians threw in with the Iranians to sabotage Iraq? Why are advisers to Senators Clinton and Obama in the Syrian capital at a time like this? Are they pressing for a separate peace with the regime? It is something on which Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton will be challenged in the coming campaign, we have little doubt. Where do they stand in respect of Syria ? and why can't they bring themselves to explain what their advisers are doing in the capital of one of the countries most hostile to America and Israel?

[bparker]

Thats exactly what I am affraid to see...

Originally Posted by wpage

Should be interesting to see what comes of the Hillary & Barack dog and pony show...